The independent LDD party of former Olympic judo Coach Jean-Marie Dedecker is surging in popularity as Belgium's long linguistic stalemate that divides Dutch-speaking Flemings and francophone Walloons drags on, a poll published Saturday indicated.
The poll in northern Flanders also highlighted the lack of trust in politics in general and the government of Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme in particular.
LDD gained in popularity at the cost of the extreme right Flemish Interest party and the socialists. Flanders represents almost 6 million people in the bilingual nation of 10.5 million. There was no comparable poll in francophone Wallonia this weekend.
Dedecker guided several judokas to Olympic medals during his coaching career but switched to politics a decade ago, where he made a name for himself with his no-nonsense approach and driven, populist speeches.
After spending time with the Flemish liberals, he founded his own party, which shot to prominence in last year's June 10 election by winning five seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives. That electoral percentage of 6.5 percent would now be almost triple at 16.2 percent, according to the TNS Media poll, which has a 3 percent margin of error.
At the same time, the Flemish Interest party fell from 19 percent to 14 percent, while the socialists dropped from 16.1 percent to 14 percent.
The governing liberals remained at 18.8 percent, while the CD&V Christian Democrats and N-VA nationalists, which had a combined 29.6 percent, would still account for 28.1 percent together since their recent split.
A similar poll in Wallonia last week showed a more stable picture of slight gains for socialists as the leading party and minor losses for the MR liberals.
Prime Minister Leterme has led an unwieldy alliance of Christian Democrats, Liberals, Socialists and nationalist hard-liners from both language camps since March 20, but has failed to broker a pact to devolve more federal powers to the Flanders and Wallonia.
